The symphony orchestra offers a vast range of sonic possibilities that can be used to onomatopoeically imitate sounds from everyday life—mechanical devices, motor traffic, nature, specific animals—and thus a composition was born that can be listened to programmatically, or not at all, as music is always universal enough to be interpreted and experienced in any way the listener chooses.
Imagine approaching a car parked in a garage: you open the door, sit down, close the door, try to start the engine with an almost empty battery—and eventually succeed. You maneuver in the parking lot, reverse, and then merge into traffic. Various ambient city sounds become audible—church bells, other cars, trucks, bicycles, motorcycles (Doppler effect), traffic lights, car indicators, road workers, car brakes, a passing train, an ambulance, fire trucks, driving through a tunnel, rain—and many more.
In this first part of the composition, the timpani play the central role, representing the car engine with a constant tremolo glissando, reflecting the engine’s revolutions as influenced by pressing the gas pedal. The strings’ sonic layer supports the timpani effect with continuous glissando, evoking the rotation of the tires. Eventually, the driver escapes the city bustle.
For the modern urban human of the third millennium, the zoo becomes an ideal illusion of nature. In the treasury of classical music, many pieces symbolically portray the animal world, yet they are often more fantastical and metaphorical in their melodic-animal connections. In this piece, the mellow strings represent the visitors, observing caged animals with decadently pleasant emotions. Woodwinds, brass, and percussion mimic various animals encountered along the path. The strings occasionally mimic animals as well—cellos portray donkeys, violins depict insects, etc.
Into this pastoral scene of the walkers, the harsh reality of enslaved living beings intervenes; eventually, a human appears among the caged animals (represented by the marimba). In the end, the trapped creatures are set free. Since music is fundamentally abstract, the programmatic interpretation of this composition, despite the author’s notes, can remain entirely subjective.